Pride and Strife — Chuck Smith

Oh, let the sun... Welcome to The Word For Today,.

Featuring the Bible teaching of the late Pastor Chuck Smith, founder of the Calvary Chapel Movement. This radio program is a verse-by-verse study through the entire Bible. And on today's edition of The Word For Today, Pastor Chuck's focus will be centered on pride and strife, as we pick up in Proverbs 13, verse 7.

Now, with today's message, here's Pastor Chuck.

The Paradox of Riches and Generosity

Now, the seventh here is, there is that which makes himself rich, and yet he has nothing. There is that which makes himself poor, and yet he has great riches. Paradoxes. Jesus said much the same thing when he said, he who seeks to save his life will lose it.

But he who will lose his life for my sake shall find it. There are those who hold on to everything they have. They seek riches. They seek to make themselves rich. And yet they are very poor. And yet there are those who are generous.

They give. They may not have much for themselves, but oh, are they rich. The richness of giving, it's more blessed to give than it is to receive. And the riches that you experience by giving. And so, those that seek to make themselves rich, having nothing.

Those that make themselves poor by their generosity, and yet they have great riches. The thing is, you cannot out-give God. It's just, God won't allow it. He will never be a debtor to you. The ransom of a man's life are his riches, but the poor heareth not rebuke.

I don't quite catch the contrast that he's bringing there. The light of the righteous rejoiceth, but the lamp of the wicked will be put out. So, righteousness and wicked again. Only by pride cometh contention, but with the well-advised is wisdom.

Pride, Contention, and Wealth Gained by Vanity

Pride always brings contention. It brings fighting. It brings this competition. It brings a lot of evil. With pride comes contention. You can't be proud without being contentious. It's one of the marks of pride.

And wealth gotten by vanity shall be diminished. It would be interesting to poll those who won the lottery in the first year. Now, that's wealth gotten by vanity. It's wealth that you got you didn't work for.

You just sort of, you know, lucked into it. With the spin of the wheel or whatever. And wealth gotten by vanity shall be diminished. But he that gathereth by labor shall increase. You appreciate it when you work for it.

Something that you work for, you really appreciate. Hope deferred. And hope deferred is always a very tragic thing. It maketh the heart sick. You're hoping that it'll come through, you know, and you go down to collect and they say, oh, we're sorry it's not here.

It'll probably be another couple of weeks. And it makes your heart sick. Hope deferred. But when the desire comes, oh, it's like a tree of life. Whoso despiseth the word shall be destroyed. I believe this is a reference to the word of God because it speaks in contrast the commandments or actually not in contrast.

Well, it is in contrast. But he that feareth the commandment. But if you despise the word, you'll be destroyed. The word of God is life. But those who fear the commandments of God, they shall be rewarded.

That is fear in the sense of reverencing, obeying, or keeping the commandments of God. The law of the wise is like a fountain of life to depart from the snares of death. Now, a good understanding gives favor, but the way of the transgressors is hard.

The Bitter Consequences of Sin

If you transgress against God's law, it will catch up with you. The Bible said you can be sure your sins will find you out. Now, Satan is constantly deceiving people and saying to people much what he said to Eve, God is trying to hold you back from something that is exciting and something that is delicious and something that is desirable, something that is pleasant, something that is good.

And God isn't fair in forbidding you to do those things because those things will make you happy. They will bring you pleasure. They will bring you excitement. And God is just trying to quench your good time and quench you from having a lot of fun.

No, God is trying to keep you from having a lot of sorrow for the end result of those transgressions will be bitter. They may be sweet in your mouth, but when you go to digest them, they're going to upset your stomach.

They'll be bitter in your stomach. The consequences of transgressing the law of God are hard. You may get by for a while and some people do. And because they get by with their transgressions, they begin to think that God doesn't know or God doesn't see or God doesn't care or it doesn't really matter with God.

Or worse, some even begin to believe that God approves. But down the road, you'll discover that the way of the transgressor is hard. When sin begins to take its toll on your body, on your life, on your family, on everything that is meaningful to you, you'll find the way of the transgressor is hard.

If you could just sit in our office and see men sobbing, convulsively sobbing over the grief that they are going through because they decided to have a fling. And it was, you know, a flirtation. It was fun.

It was a escapade. It was exciting. But the wife found the lipstick on the collar and began to examine, found out what was going on. And she went to an attorney and filed for divorce. And now this little cutie that he was playing around with is not anything that he really wanted.

And he sees his children as they're crying every time he has to say goodbye. And they're clinging and saying, Daddy, please don't go. But his wife won't have anything to do with him. And he wants her back and he's sorry.

The way of the transgressor is hard. It's painful. It hurts. Ultimately, it will get you. You think that you're getting by with sin. You're not getting by with sin. And it'll catch up with you. And the way of the transgressor is hard.

Instruction, Reproof, and the Sweetness of Accomplishment

Now every prudent or wise man dealeth with knowledge, but a fool layeth open his folly. A wicked messenger falls into mischief, but a faithful ambassador is held. The wicked messenger gets into mischief.

Poverty and shame shall be to him who refuses instruction. You won't listen. You'll end up in poverty and shame. But he who regards reproof shall be honored. The desire that is accomplished is sweet to the soul.

Isn't that the truth? You have a desire and you finally accomplish it and it's just sweet to the soul. It's just good. You just enjoy it. My little granddaughter has been after me for a long time to build her a playhouse.

She wanted a two-story playhouse with a balcony. And so I've been taking my days off for several months now building a two-story playhouse with a balcony. And I applied the final coat of paint on the outside the other day.

Built this little dream house for my little granddaughter. Her mother wanted a playhouse. I never got to it. Her aunt wanted a playhouse. I never got to that. So I told her mother and her aunt, this is the playhouse that you girls never received.

But it's her playhouse. And I'll tell you, to stand there and have her just hold my hand and say, oh, Grandpa, it's beautiful. Oh, Grandpa, you know, oh, hey, it's worth it. And the desire that is accomplished is so sweet to the soul.

So satisfying when you complete the project. But it is an abomination for fools to depart from evil. They're just locked into evil. Now he that walketh with wise men shall be wise. You want to be wise?

Get around wise men. Walk with wise men. But a companion of the fools, hey, you'll be destroyed. Evil pursues sinners. You can be sure your sins will find you out. You're pursued by wild beasts. Evil pursues sinners.

But to the righteous, good shall be recompensed, repaid. A good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children. That's what I'm doing, leaving for my children's children this inheritance, this little two-story house.

Provision, Judgment, and the Discipline of Children

Interesting verse here. The wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just. Much food is in the tillage of the poor. But there is that is destroyed for want of judgment. So a lot of food in the plowing of the poor, and yet so much of it is destroyed many times for lack of judgment.

You know, we send or did send a lot of relief to India. A lot of grains, wheat, rice, and so forth. And yet the people starved to death. It wasn't because there was the lack of food. There had been plenty of food sent.

But with their Hindu beliefs that the rats may be some ancestor and they wouldn't kill the rats, the rats ate the food or got into it. And the people were starving to death while there was food that was there.

So the lack of judgment, the supplies are destroyed. He that spares his rod, I used to hate this one, hates his son. But he who loves his son will chasten him often. Solomon's father was a very poor disciplinarian.

He rarely corrected his sons. And as a result, some of them went bad, very bad. And so Solomon will have more to say about the importance of not sparing the rod. There is another proverb, if you spare the rod and spoil the child, proverb says.

Now my son thought that was a command. And when I went to spank him once, he said, Dad, that's not scriptural. The scripture says spare the rod and spoil the child. I'm afraid that's the way some of us look at some of the scriptures.

Contentment in Righteousness Versus the Insatiability of Wickedness

The righteous eats and is satisfied. But the belly of the wicked shall always want. Isn't it interesting how that a person, it seems, is never satisfied with material things? There's always a want, no matter how much you have.

There's never any area of satisfaction in wickedness. You never get to the place where you say, well, I'm satisfied. I've got enough. I'll just sit back and enjoy. The more you get, the more you seem to want.

And yet with the righteous, he eats to the satisfying of his own soul. The life of righteousness is a life of contentment, a life of satisfaction and peace. Now to the women, every wise woman builds her house.

But the foolish plucks it down with her hands. A wise woman builds her house, watches over the family, cares for the children. Actually, ladies, the Friday morning Bible studies began with this proverb.

Kay was reading this proverb. And this is the one that sort of spurred her into starting the Friday morning studies years ago. As she sought to share her experiences as a mother with the younger girls in the church.

The children were all grown and Kay began to have a little more time. And Paul said the older women should teach the younger women how to keep their home, love their husbands and all. And so this proverb, the wise woman buildeth her own house, was actually the first scripture she taught from in the Friday morning studies.

Which started in a home until the police department kicked them out because so many people were coming. But wise women building their homes, it takes wisdom. He that walks in his uprightness fears the Lord.

If you're really upright, you'll have a respect, a fear, a reverence for God. But the perverse in their ways despise the Lord. So you can tell if a man is righteous or perverse on his attitude towards the Lord.

One will reverence the Lord, love the Lord, the other hates the Lord. In the mouth of the foolish is the rod of pride. But the lips of the wise will preserve him. Here's an interesting proverb. Where no oxen are, the crib is clean.

That is, the barn is very clean if you don't have any ox. You know, you don't want to clean the barn, no ox. But much increase is by the strength of the ox. If you want to have anything, you better have an ox and, you know, clean it up.

I mean afterwards. But where there is no oxen, the crib is clean, but yet you don't have much. With the ox, there's much increase by his strength. You use him to plow and all. A faithful witness will not lie.

Again, that's very obvious. But a false witness will utter lies. A scorner seeks wisdom but doesn't find it. But knowledge is easy to him that understand it. Used to be, going to school, I found school very easy.

And I would come out having taken a test in a particular class and the kids that were going into class would say, is the test hard? And I'd say, no, not if you know the answers. And you ever notice if you know the answers, the test isn't hard at all.

It's a very simple test if you know the answers. If you don't know the answers, yeah, I guess it could be rather hard. All depends on whether or not you know the answers. So it's hard to say whether or not a test was hard.

It all depends on did you know the answers or not. And that's basically knowledge is easy to him who understands. You know, simple test because you knew the answers. Now, here's just instruction, just good instruction.

Wisdom, Folly, and the Hidden Sorrows of the Heart

Go from the presence of a foolish man when you perceive not in him the lips of knowledge. When a guy is just uttering foolishness and you perceive, hey, this guy is just dumb, stupid. Just leave, you know.

The wisdom of the prudent is to understand his way. A wise man will seek to understand the way. But the folly of fools is deceit. For fools mock at sin. Have you ever heard a person mock at sin? Oh, I'm a sinner, you know.

And they say it in a mocking way. But among the righteous there is favor. Now, the heart knows his own bitterness. No one knows what you feel like you yourself. Even the closest person to you doesn't really understand many times the grief or the sorrow that you feel.

There's another proverb that says, no one knows how the shoe pinches but the man who wears it. So, no one really knows many times the sorrow that you're feeling inside. And the stranger does not intermeddle with his joy.

Again, they don't understand the joys or the feelings that you have, the bitterness or the joys.

We'll return with more of our verse-by-verse study through the book of Proverbs in our next lesson. As Pastor Chuck Smith encourages us on the path in which we should walk. And we do hope you'll make plans to join us.

But right now, I'd like to remind you that if you'd like to secure a copy of today's message, simply order Proverbs chapter 13, verse 7 when visiting the wordfortoday .org. And while you're there, we encourage you to browse the many additional biblical resources by Pastor Chuck.

You can also subscribe to the Word for Today podcast or sign up for our email subscription. Once again, all this can be found at the wordfortoday .org. If you wish to call, our toll-free number is 1 -800 -272-WORD.

And our office hours are Monday through Friday, 8 a .m. to 5 p .m. Pacific Time. Again, that's 1 -800 -272 -9673. For those of you preferring to write, our mailing address is The Word for Today, P .O. Box 8000, Costa Mesa, California, 92628.

And now on behalf of The Word for Today, we'd like to thank all of you who share in supporting this ministry with your prayers and financial support. And be sure to join us again next time as Pastor Chuck continues his verse-by-verse study through the Bible.

That's right here on the next edition of The Word for Today. And now once again, here's Pastor Chuck with today's closing comments.

Experiencing and Sharing the Love of Christ

May the Lord be with you and strengthen you by His Spirit in your inner man. And may He give to you a spiritual revelation that you might know the exceeding riches of His love and grace towards you in Christ Jesus.

That you might comprehend what is the length, the breadth, the depth, the height to know the love of Christ which passes human understanding. May you experience that love as He works in your life this week.

And may you share that love with others as you go forth as His witness to the world. God make you a shining light and a powerful witness for Jesus Christ.

Biblical Principles for Marriage and Family

Undoubtedly, one of the most glaring signs that our society is in trouble is the breakdown of the family unit. Marriages just aren't making it today and kids are suffering as they watch the breakup of their homes.

Those marriages still holding together are often plagued by conflict and turmoil, making the home a battleground instead of a refuge. That's why The Word for Today would like to present Pastor Chuck Smith's Marriage and Family MP3 where Pastor Chuck discusses basic biblical principles to keep a family's love alive.

Each member of the family has a different set of needs and responsibilities. And when you know and apply God's principles, everyone in the family can experience real peace, real joy and an agape love.

To order your copy of the Marriage and Family MP3 by Chuck Smith, call The Word for Today at 800 -272-WORD or visit us online at www .thewordfortoday .org.

This program has been sponsored by The Word for Today in Costa Mesa, California.